Cape Fear Astronomical Society Newsletter - Editor Debbi Hayden April 6, 2003 Meeting Featuring Johnny Horne, an accomplished amateur astronomer and astrophotographer. Be there to help us kick-off the CFAS 20th Anniversary year celebration! Join us before the meeting for dinner and a social with past and present. CFAS members at Annabelle's restaurant on Oleander Drive, at 4:30 pm. Meeting Minutes for March 2nd, 2003 by CFAS Secretary Terry Herrin President Si Cantwell called the meeting to order at 7:04pm. The first item on the agenda was officers' reports. Treasurer Ben Steelman reminded everyone that it's time to pay annual dues. Ben also presented Secretary Terry Herrin with a full financial report. The checking account balance is $1,850.93. The savings account balance is $316.56. The certificate of deposit balance is $1,136.49. Under old business, the 20th anniversary t-shirts are done, and available for pick up. Alan Hilburn presented the available menu items for the dinner at Annabelle's on 4/6/03. The dinner is part of the official event celebrating the club's 20th anniversary. A vote was taken and the chicken and seafood buffet was chosen. Start time for the dinner will be 4:30pm. Also under old business, Si reminded the club about the need for a video projector for presentations. The projector committee's research indicates that while a projector that meets the club's needs may be found as cheap as $1,000, a good one will probably be closer to $1,500. Finishing up old business, the telescope clinic at Ingram Planetarium was discussed, and everyone agreed it was a huge success. Under new business, Ronnie Hawes spoke with Cindy Simpson, Youth Services Coordinator for Brunswick County Libraries. She has asked if club members could give presentations during the month of June. She is asking for presentations on Monday or Wednesday mornings during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th weeks of the month. There would be two presentations needed, one on Oak Island and one in Southport. The presentations should be thirty to forty-five minutes. Also under new business, Ronnie spoke to Virginia Howell from the Cape Fear Museum about their Saturday Science Spectacular (S3) on 4/26/03. The club has had a booth at the event in previous years, and will be there again. It was also suggested that solar observing could be set up in the parking lot if the sky is clear. Finishing up new business, Alan Hilburn has volunteered to be a judge for the New Hanover County Middle School Science Fair. A vote was taken and it was agreed that the club should donate a free one year club membership to the best Science Fair entry related to astronomy. The meeting broke for ten minutes at 7:30pm. Steve Clemmons then gave a presentation about his experiences working at Cape Canaveral during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, with a focus on the Apollo 1 tragedy. The recent space shuttle Columbia tragedy was also discussed. After Mr. Clemmons' presentation Si asked if there was any other business, and having none, adjourned the meeting at 9:00 pm. News Cluster - A big thank-you to Shelley and Joe Callahan for all of their hard work on the CFAS 20th Anniversary T-shirts! Thank-you's to Ronnie Hawes for the design and to Susan for making it all work for the printers! They came out great! - Just a reminder about the Festival of Flight celebration in Fayetteville, NC, coming up in May. All the information about the event can be found at: www.festivalofflight.org - The winner of the award for "Excellence in the Study of Space Science" is Grant Morine. Grant won first place in the New Hanover County Science Fair in the Technology – Juniors Division and Best of Show – Middle School. His project dealt with testing the size of antennas for a short wave radio for distance in sending and receiving a signal. Grant will receive a free membership in the CFAS for a period of one year. Congratulations! - If the Messier Marathon tentatively scheduled for March 29th is rained out or "clouded out", the back-up date is the night of April 5th-6th. Wow! Time Flies! Remember when the first "reusable vehicle", the space shuttle Columbia, was launched into space? That was twenty-two years ago this month! And the first time you heard about the Hubble Telescope? We have been receiving unbelievable pictures of deep sky objects from this Earth-orbiting wonder for nearly thirteen years! Okay, ten years - my, those "glasses" they put on Hubble in 1993 really did help! Well, live and learn... Through programs like Voyager, we have been given unprecedented views of our solar system companions. We have landed probes on Venus and Mars, giving us eyes to literally see into other worlds, and hopefully to understand ours a little better. The SOHO solar orbiter has broadened our knowledge of the Sun's surface, its corona, and solar winds that produce our spectacular auroras. The past twenty years have seen the return of the great Halley's Comet, and the discovery of many more. We have studied asteroids and had a near-miss with one in particular not too long ago! We have seen so many fantastic developments in not only human space flight, but also in our understanding of our surroundings. Much of that thanks to Mir and International Space Station, where we have people living and performing experiments that are not possible here on Earth. We may have only been given a glimpse of the tiny spot we occupy in the universe, but I really enjoy taking it all in with the members of the Cape Fear Astronomical Society. Here's to the next twenty years! Interview with Ronnie Hawes.. I asked Ronnie if he could give us an idea of what the club was like in its early years, and this is what he said... "It all began when I saw an article in the Wilmington paper on Monday, December 20th, 1982. There was a picture of Rev. Robert (Bob) Cook alongside a small telescope. ASTRONOMY BUFFS SEARCH FOR STAR LOVERS read the headline. Rev. Bob Cook was the pastor at St. James Church on the corner of Third and Market Street. Alan and I attended the first meeting at the church in March, 1983. I forget how many members we had (about 10-12, not sure). "Bob was the first president, Betty McMillan, who was a member at the time of The American Association of Variable Star Observers, was our first secretary-treasurer, but I've forgotten who was vice president. We met at the church every month, had some refreshments and just sat around and talked telescopes, astronomy and the like. We would have viewing sessions on the playground of Pine Valley School. The Cape Fear Astronomy Club was going fairly well for a while. "Then a few members, for whatever reasons, left the club. One was very disappointed that, when looking through a telescope, he couldn't see galaxies and nebulae like you saw in books, so he left. There were just a few members left so we decided to stay in touch and see what would happen. "In early 1985, several articles would appear from time to time in the paper about the return of Halley's Comet in 1986. The club re-formed and membership started to grow. We started to have monthly meetings in King Hall, UNCW campus. One of our first public viewing sessions was held at UNCW. As Halley's Comet drew near, we held a series of public comet viewing sessions at Ft. Fisher. The sessions were held at different times of the night, depending where the comet was. Many of the sessions were held in the morning hours until dawn, and people still came. We had a few senior citizens who saw the comet back in 1910 when they were children. "Well, as time went on, the club grew. Our first viewing site was Old River Acres, then a couple in the club let us use some land to build a walled-in viewing site just north of Hampstead, and now the Holly Shelter and Yamacraw sites, all in Pender County. As time went on, so did the club, club meetings, club and public viewing sessions, talks to different groups, cookouts, field trips, Christmas socials and best of all, great fellowship with great people of the Cape Fear Astronomcial Society. "Hope the next 20 years will be as good as the past 20 years!" - Ronnie